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In Which Kendis Slays Harkon and Does Side Quests
Main action in this post is finishing up Dawnguard, then also doing a bunch of side questing. And forgetting that if I’m going to do the quests to de-wolfify Vilkas and Farkas in the Companions, and I’m on a non-modded build, I have to do Farkas first. Oops.
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In Which Ysani Obliterates Northwatch Keep and Brings Jenassa to the Blades
This post covers play done on Tuesday 5/3 and Wednesday 5/4. Main action: taking Jenassa on a trip to free Thorald Gray-Mane from Northwatch Keep, and then taking her to be a recruit for the Blades. Side action: general adventuring, including running Shalidor’s Maze and slaying the dragon at Eldersblood Peak.
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In Which Delga Does More General Adventuring
Another fairly low-key session, since although this was a Friday night session, I had to get up in the morning to go to chiro, and couldn’t stay up until stupid-o’clock playing Skyrim!
So mostly, this was just wandering around doing training, crafting, and general adventuring, accompanied by housecarl Calder!
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In Which Delga Visits Alduin’s Wall and Becomes Thane of Hjaalmarch
This session saw advancement on the main plot, wherein Delga caught up with Delphine and Esbern and learned the lore of Alduin’s Wall. After that, I went to Morthal to investigate a house burning, killed some vampires, and became Thane of Hjaalmarch!
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In Which Merawen Fights Bandits, Draugr, and Another Dragon
This was another intermediary type session in which my only real goal was “do some bounties and run some lairs to build up some working capital”. Which let me clear the bandit lair Nilheim, and also go up against the Eldersblood Peak dragon!
As always, full commentary behind the fold.
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In Which the Dragonborn Becomes Thane of the Pale
Decided to head back to Dawnstar last night, and finish up the necessary steps to become thane there. Plus, the obligatory selling, smithing, and hunting!
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In Which Alarrah Becomes a Thane of Morthal
I’m afraid I broke my last Skyrim post’s mirror over to Dreamwidth, so for the benefit of those of you reading this post from there, here’s the link to my previous Skyrim writeup:
In Which the Dragonborn Goes to Morthal and Slays a Giant
And now we rejoin our regularly scheduled Dragonborn!
Tonight’s goal: finish off becoming Thane of Morthal, and seeing what all that actually gets me. Answer: my very own buildable house, yay! And a whole extra housecarl!
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In Which the Dragonborn Almost Loses Her Housecarl
Twitter thread from 5/14/2021, in which Alarrah goes hunting on the Whiterun plains, witnesses the Whiterun guards slaying a dragon, slays the dragon at Eldersblood Peak for Morthal, and buys Breezehome.
In Which the Dragonborn Almost Loses Her Housecarl, But Finds Her Again, and Also Finally Gets an Actual House:
1. Started tonight’s round of adventuring by clearing stuff out of the inventory.
10:47 PM · May 14, 2021So that meant doing more smithing with my leather from hunting, and also some alchemy with various things I’d harvested. Of note when I went into Warmaiden’s: OH HEY they got in a pair of Elven Boots! Why yes please I’ll have some!
10:48 PM · May 14, 20212. Then went out onto the plains to go hunting with Lyds. Took down a deer and a couple of mudcrabs; Lyds took out a sabre cat. Sneak made it up to 50.
10:49 PM · May 14, 20213. Spotted a bonfire from afar. Was advised by Paul that why yes that IS a giant campsite. We stayed very far and very sneakily away from it.!
10:49 PM · May 14, 20214. Wending my way back around towards Whiterun, as it was getting dark, nabbed some torchbugs and a couple of Luna Moths. And oh yeah another Nirnroot!
5. And there we are feeling all worked out from a nice afternoon of hunting, when suddenly ROOOOOOOOOAAAR overhead.
10:50 PM · May 14, 2021At this point I’d turned down the volume on the Switch because TV was being watched, so that roar first manifested as the device rumbling in my grasp. I thought “uh oh” and said out loud “Uh, why is the Switch rumbling?”
10:51 PM · May 14, 2021More ROOOOOOOOOAAR. Yep. Dragon. We got in a couple potshots at the thing until it finally LANDED RIGHT OUTSIDE WHITERUN, at which point I went “OH SHIT”, drew my sword, and ran to catch up.
10:51 PM · May 14, 20216. By the time I got there the guards had already killed it. But as I was in fact the Dragonborn, as soon as I got near I did slurp up its soul.
10:51 PM · May 14, 20217. Also noticed that the dragon had killed at least one of the guards! Hope it wasn’t one of those who’d been wandering around going “My cousin’s out fighting dragons, and what do I get? Guard duty.”
10:52 PM · May 14, 2021Let it also be noted for the record that I did NOT loot the dead guard, given that his compatriots were still _right there_, so that seemed unwise as well as disrespectful!
10:52 PM · May 14, 20218. Needless to say, after that surprise burst of end-of-day adrenaline, Alarrah felt it appropriate to go back to the inn and conk out.
10:53 PM · May 14, 20219. Next day: decided to take a crack at one of the other pending side quests, helping out a couple more of the people in Morthal to see if I can get that Jarl to declare me her thane. Got there, rented a room, and asked the innkeeper if she knew of any work to be had.
10:53 PM · May 14, 2021She handed me a bounty about ANOTHER dragon that had landed up on a nearby peak. “Right then,” Alarrah says to Lydia, “let’s go kill another dragon.”
10:54 PM · May 14, 202110. This was a short tromp southwest of Morthal, and I cut over there cross country. Bit challenging to sneak in snow, particularly on steep mountain slopes, but I eventually found my way up to the right place. And it was very obviously the right place because ROOOOAAAAAR.
10:55 PM · May 14, 202111. We found signs of a wiped out bandit camp as well as a dead Frost Troll, as indicators of having found the appropriate path up the mountain. Eventually started finding arches marking the path as well.
10:55 PM · May 14, 202112. Tried to take a few potshots at the dragon while it was flying overhead, after switching off to the better arrows. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do much damage to it, but its hit point bar did go down in size some.
10:56 PM · May 14, 202113. At Paul’s advice though I hastened further up the mountain, to get to a flat spot where I could take the beast on properly. And yeah, it landed and came at me. My leather armor took most of the damage, but I had to gulp down several of my healing potions to stay alive!
10:56 PM · May 14, 202114. Also finally managed to use Unrelenting Force a time or two in this combat, which is I think the first time I’ve managed to use a Shout in a proper fight.
15. AND remembered to actually block with my friggin’ shield. Which got me a bump of the Block skill.
10:57 PM · May 14, 202116. Good hard battle and I finally killed it… only to realize oh shit, where the fuck is Lydia?
10:57 PM · May 14, 2021A little concerned that the dragon might have killed her, I headed cautiously at Paul’s urging back down along the path I’d come to get there.
10:58 PM · May 14, 2021Grabbed loot out of a chest (including, notably, an Elven Shield to go with those boots) on the way, as well as hide off a cow the dragon had hauled up there, and Troll Fat off another downed troll.
10:58 PM · May 14, 2021At this point though I’m thinking Alarrah is also going “oh shit oh shit LYDIA” and maybe running a bit back down that path.
17. No sign of her, dead or otherwise. Dara and Paul both then suggested I fast travel back up to the top of the mountain to see if Lydia resets and catches up with me. And she did. WHEW!
10:59 PM · May 14, 2021Cue Alarrah going “OH THANK DIVINES c’mere you big brawny Nord goddess”. Maybe or maybe not in her Outside Voice. 😉
11:00 PM · May 14, 202118. With that, our weary heroines fast travelled back to Morthal and collected the bounty for the killing of the dragon. This got me up to just over 4500 gold, not quite enough to go back to Whiterun for the house.
11:00 PM · May 14, 2021So I popped into the thaumaturgist’s hut and sold her a bunch of potions, enough to kick me up over the 5000 mark. Also sold her the dragon bits as ingredients.
11:01 PM · May 14, 202119. This dragon killing did NOT, I note, actually tick over the “help the people of Hjaalsmarch” quest to 2/3. I PROTEST. I think if the Jarl’s put out a call to kill a dragon haranguing her people, killing the damn thing helps ALL OF THEM AT ONCE. Hrmph. 🙂
11:01 PM · May 14, 202120. Anyway, back to Whiterun to get the house!
21. Which proved surprisingly difficult, as I popped a couple of times into Dragonsreach and could not for the life of me find the Steward.
11:01 PM · May 14, 2021Finally had to go back to the inn one more time, keel over there for some rest, and go back to Dragonsreach the next morning.
22. At which point, finally, the Steward! Hey, dude, I have money, gimme the house mmkay?
11:02 PM · May 14, 202123. He gave me the key to the house! And now Lyds and I have actual crash space! Looks pretty pitiful at the moment being filled with mostly cobwebs and crates, so I need to throw more money at the Steward to pretty it up. But that will be for tomorrow’s adventuring!
11:02 PM · May 14, 202124. And oh yeah–finally discovered what that Nirnroot is good for. Potions of Invisibility! And got a guard going “You couldn’t possibly be the Dragonborn of legend. Could you?” at me. My rep, it is definitely spreading.
11:02 PM · May 14, 202125. And OH OH OH the other important thing I found in the second dragon’s chest: Meridia’s Beacon. Took that thing out and an otherworldly voice sounded off about how her shrine was profaned by darkness and I was going to go clean it up for her. “Wait,” says Alarrah, “I AM? WUT?”
11:07 PM · May 14, 2021Notes
- This post was originally written on 3/17/2022, but backdated to the time of the tweet thread for organizational purposes.
- Post updated on 12/30/2022 to reconstruct the original Twitter thread in the post body, and remove links to Twitter.